Vocabulary Amusement (by Justin W. Price)

 

Vocabulary Amusement
by Justin W. Price

Pungent vociferous Viking man
Laughing oddly at the rapidly growing moose brains
Eating heads and drinking blood
From the skulls of reindeer
With fur coats of gargantuan orangutan proportion
Raping and pillaging and tearing asunder

Magic man, spinning awe and wonder
Cattle fish cut vice grip flap jack
Wearing polish Armani sausage hats
And necrophiliac ants and frizzy
Nappy headed grease farms of juxtaposed vision quests
Reigning supreme with the Cherokee
The chickadee
The Choctaw and Sacajawea’s breasts
Milk white and firm
Pulled from a hat
Rabbit like

Tales spun in the depths of night
Drunk on anti-freeze frostbite gin and marijuana
Dancing naked in the moonlight while the wolverines watch
And the cougars courageously laugh and smirk
Amidst swarming cantaloupes and lizard brains making stew to cure tuberculosis and psychosis
Fuckingcattlewreckingball
Muchingweedybucketface
Playfuljunglecatshitstorm
Californication has us
By the toes,
Slimy with jam.

* * * * *

A Gover Prize (short fiction) finalist, Justin W. Price is a short story, biography and humor writer. His poetry collection, Digging to China (in which “Vocabulary Amusement” appears), was released early this year by Sweatshoppe Publications. His work will be featured in Best New Writing (2014 edition), and has appeared in many publications including the Rusty Nail, eFiction, Burningword, See Spot Run, The Whislting Fire, Literary Juice, the Crisis Chronicles, The Hellroaring Review and the Bellwether Review.

He works as a freelance writer, editor, and ghost writer and blogger. Justin lives in a suburb of Portland, Oregon with his wife, Andrea, their two dogs a labradoodle, Bella and a Shnoodle, Sauvee and a black moor goldfish named Howard Wolowitz.

Learn more about Justin’s career by following him on Facebook and Twitter.

Leaves Black (by Justin W. Price)

 

Leaves Black
by Justin W. Price

Leaves black
brown cured
with rum
whiskey vanilla,
crushed.

Pinched between
thumb, forefinger.
Shove into
wooden bowl
pack tightly.

Inhale,
watch
as they take fire.

Inhale sweet
danger
into mouth.

Exhale.

Nerves calm.

Inhale.

Clear head.

Taste lingers,
slightly bitter
mostly sweet,
hinted death.

Smell.

Live.

Lie back.

Exhale.

* * * * *

Justin W. Price is the managing editor at efiction Horror and for The Bridge online newspaper. His first book of poetry, Digging to China, is available for Amazon Kindle and will shortly be re-released by indie publisher Sweatshoppe Publications. [Click here to order.]

He has been published in the Hellroaring Review, The Bellwether Review, The Rusty Nail, the Crisis Chronicles, eFiction Humor and eFiction Magazine. He maintains a blog and is an active writer on Hub Pages. 

He is husband to Andrea, father to two dogs. writer, poet, baseball fan, tattooed. He is an amateur theologian with a rabid sweet tooth. He resides in a suburb of Portland, Oregon.

You may contact the author at justin@efictionmag.com.

Getting Gas in Barstow, California (by Justin W. Price)

 

Getting Gas in Barstow, California
by Justin W. Price

There’s a full service gas station
just east of Barstow, California. I’m taking
my brand new Dodge Charger for a trip
to Las Vegas. It still bears temporary tags.
It’s blood, blood red
with a white racing stripe running all along it.

I pull in and see the gas station attendant.
He’s a baked loaf of bread, cooked
well past the point of pleasant crunchiness.
He’s wearing blue coveralls and a salty beard.
He approaches my car.

His cratered lips speak
in a sandpaper voice. Fill ‘er up?

Twenty. I pull out a crisp
bill. His curled black fingers take it,
crumble it, into his shirt pocket. He smiles
Nice car, he says.
His oily brown skin dirties my hood
when he leans against it. He squints
and puts a cracked,
oil stained boot
on the curb and inserts the nozzle
into my gas tank.

His musty hair stumbles
in the dry Mojave wind. There’s a thin
tan line on his left ring finger. His eyes
are dried out red caverns. He spits brown
and sticky chew, sucking some of it
back in. It smells like gasoline
and menthol cigarettes.

Where ya headed?
Home.

He nods sadly and, as I drive away,
he waves.

* * * * *

Justin W. Price is a freelance writer, editor, ghost writer and student based out of Portland, Oregon. He lives with his wife, Andrea, their two dogs and a menagerie of books and classic films. He was the poetry and correspondence editor for the Bellwether Review‘s Spring 2012 issue and is now the managing editor for eFiction Horror Magazine.

He recently released a poetry collection, Digging to China, for Amazon Kindle and writes on Hubpages and maintains a blog.

His work has been featured in efiction Magazine, The Hellroaring Review, Rusty Nail and the Bellwether Review.